He's Gone, but Not Forgotten
by Kaybea13
Summary: Summer is over and everyone is returning back to Kadic Academy for a new year of school.  But where is everyone's favorite brunette soccer star? Warning! OxU, shounen ai. Mentioned child abuse/character death


**A/N: Yet another sad fic... I really got to stop writing these kind! This just came to me after reading some other fics and I decided to write it even though I know I had other stuff that I should be doing, i.e. AP homework and whatnot. Anyway, I promise that I am still working on 'Love Me, Leave Me' and Don't Leave Me', but I felt the need to publish this one as well. It'll be a two-shot. The next new story I post will be happy, I promise! Warning: Character Death and mentioned child abuse. Also UxO shounen ai.**

It was the first day back at Kadic Academy for everyone and one particular blond boy was ecstatic to see not only his friends; Jeremie, Aelita, and Yumi; but one particular brunette. His roommate Ulrich, whom had become his best friend over his years at Kadic, had admitted to him right before winter break that he had feelings for the blond. He had been scared and started to almost cry when he had told him, but Odd put his fears to rest when he admitted to feeling the same way. They had secretly dated for awhile, but finally came out to only their friends, who promised not to tell anyone.

He made his way to their shared dorm which was the same room as last year. Once inside though he was met by a great surprise. Instead of Ulrich sitting on the bed on the left side of the room, there was an unfamiliar boy. He had short black hair and was wearing a red t-shirt with tan shorts.

"Excuse me." Odd asked. "This is room 208 right?"

The boy looked up. "Yes. You must be Odd. Hi I'm Tommy, your new roommate." Tommy got up from his bed and stretched out his hand for Odd to shake. Odd instead threw his stuff down on what used to be his bed and ran out of the room, leaving a very confused boy behind. He ran outside to the courtyard in hopes of finding one of his friends.

"Odd!" The blond heard a familiar voice shout. He turned around, and saw a pink haired girl along with a raven haired girl running towards him.

"Aelita! Yumi!" He responded, pulling them both into hugs when they had finally caught up. "How are you two?"

"I'm fine Odd." Aelita forced a small giggle, but Odd couldn't tell it was forced. "How about you? How was your summer break?"

"Amazing! But I'm glad I'm back, I can only take so much of my sisters at a time. That and I really missed Lyoko and you guys as well." He ruffled Aelita's pink hair. He had always had a soft spot for her, but his feelings towards her were nothing more than friends.

"I missed you too. Jeremie should be here any moment. He was setting up his stuff in his room last time we saw him. I'm already unpacked and everything." Odd nodded.

"Cool, cool." He looked around the two girls' heads, looking for a certain brunette.

"Do you guys know why I have a different roommate? Did Jim and Principal Delmas find out about me and Ulrich?" His heart fluttered at the sound of his name. He hadn't seen his boyfriend since the day they had left to go home for summer break. He looked at the two girls in front of him, both of whose faces had fallen at the mention of Ulrich's name.

"What's wrong you two?" Odd said, the joking tone slowly fading from his voice.

"Odd we need to talk." Yumi spoke for the first time since she had seen her blond and purple haired friend.

"Why what's wrong?" This time his voice was completely serious.

"Just come with us." Yumi took Odd's hand and led him to Jeremie's room. When they arrived they saw that Jeremie was running some computer program that had to be connected to Lyoko because Ulrich's card was up on the screen.

"Jeremie." Aelita said quietly through the open doorway.

The other blond turned around. "Oh, hi guys." He said solemnly. "Come on in." Odd was starting to get worried. Why were his friends acting so weird? And where was Ulrich?

The girls and Odd went into the computer genius' room, with Yumi closing the door behind them. Aelita led Odd to the bed and sat down next to him. Yumi joined them as well.

"Do you guys know why Ulrich isn't my roommate anymore? Did one of you let it slip that we were dating?" They all shook their head no.

Yumi took a deep breath and spoke. "Odd, Ulrich isn't coming back to Kadic."

"What? Why not?"

Yumi ignored his question and turned to Jeremie. "Do you really think we should tell him?"

"Yumi." Jeremy said. "He has the right to know. Principal Delmas told us, to tell Odd. We need to tell him."

The Japanese girl nodded and answered Odd's question. "Odd, did Ulrich ever tell you that his parents abused him?"

"Well yeah, we all knew that he was verbally abused by them it wasn't a big secret or anything."

Yumi shook her head and sighed. _'This is going to be more difficult than I thought.'_ She thought to herself.

"No Odd, they physically abused him." She put her hand on Odd's arm. "That's why he never wore short sleeves last year. He had too many bruises that he needed to cover up."

"No he didn't tell me that." He whispered, but deep down he had known. He had seen the bruises on Ulrich's body when they had come back from winter break.

"_Ulrich!" Odd exclaimed, running to hug his boyfriend. Ulrich winced as soon as the blond touched him. Odd immediately pulled away. "What's wrong?" _

_Ulrich shook his head. "Nothing." He tried to move away from Odd, but Odd grabbed his arm causing his sleeve to roll up, revealing several purplish-blue bruises. Fear took hold of Ulrich when he saw that Odd had seen the bruising. _

"_Ulrich honey, what happened?" Odd said, accidentally calling Ulrich 'honey'._

"_Nothing, I just hit it on the railing coming up here. Just forget about it. And please don't call me honey. I've told you that before." _

_Odd looked down and nodded. "Yeah, sorry." That was the last time they discussed his bruises. The next morning however, when Ulrich thought Odd was still asleep, he took off his shirt to inspect his battered body. Odd had to stifle a gasp of horror when he saw the bruises covering Ulrich's pale skin._

_There wasn't an inch of his body that didn't have some form of a bruise, whether it was fresh and purplish or healing and yellowing. The most severe were covering his back and chest. Tears came to his eyes, he didn't like seeing his love look like this but Ulrich had told him to forget about ever seeing the bruise and when he had, he had seemed scared. He didn't mention anything to Ulrich about it again._

"Did ever tell you that they were homophobic also?"

Odd squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, knowing where this conversation was going. Tears sprang to his eyes, but he wouldn't let them escape. "No." He breathed.

Yumi nodded, tears forming in her eyes as well. "Odd, Ulrich's not returning to Kadic because…well because-"

"He parents murdered him!" Aelita yelled harshly, before bursting into tears. "Yumi there's not use trying to hide it from Odd any longer. It'll just make his pain worse." She buried her head into Jeremie's chest and sobbed. Odd opened his eyes.

"What?" He whispered, his head. How could they? How could they kill their own son?

Yumi solemnly nodded, tears forming in her own eyes. "Yes. His father found out, Lord knows how, and he was drunk at the time and…and Ulrich put up a fight, he really did, but it wasn't enough. His neighbors called the cops when they heard the commotion, but they were too late. Ulrich was gone. His face was-" Odd put his hand across her mouth.

"Stop, just please stop." He sobbed. How could Ulrich, _his Ulrich_, be gone? He had always put up a fight before, and back then he had nothing to live for. But now, now he had Odd. As the tears fell down his cheeks, the anger rose inside of him.

"What happened to his father?"

"They arrested him." Jeremie said quietly. "And his mother too. They are in jail for both murder and child abuse, they won't be getting out for a long time if ever." Odd took very small comfort in knowing they were in jail, but he wanted more.

"Why didn't they sentence them to death? They deserve it for killing an innocent child, _their_ child because of some stupid hatred of people who are different. It's not fair." He said, a new wave of tears taking over. Yumi wrapped her arms around the smaller boy, who seemed even smaller now. Odd didn't try to break free of her embrace, instead he snuggled closer to her.

"We don't know, but at least they both are in jail." Yumi brushed a small strand of hair out of Odd's face. "Ulrich is in a better place now, he won't have to feel the pain any longer."

"I know." Odd sobbed. "But what about me? What about my pain? Not only did they hurt their son, they hurt his boyfriend as well."

"Ex-boyfriend." Jeremie corrected. He couldn't still be with Ulrich now that he was dead.

"No." Odd stated coldly. "His _boyfriend._ Ulrich may be dead, but that doesn't mean that I don't love him."

Jeremie nodded apologetically. "Sorry." He turned his attention back to the pink-haired girl in his arms, finding it for the best to try to comfort her instead.

"Odd, they are bringing the body back here to be buried. Since his parents are in jail, Principal Delmas was put in charge seeing as he was his second guardian. He thought it was what Ulrich would have wanted." She stroked his cheek. "It'll be here tomorrow. They are holding a small funeral for him as well. Principal Delmas is leaving who gets to come to it up to us." Odd nodded.

"Can it be just us four? It's what Ulrich would have wanted. To be surrounded by his friends." When Yumi looked down at the boy in her arms and into his eyes, her heart broke. It was as if you could see right into his heart, and it was crushed. There was a deep sadness in it that she knew none of them had ever experienced before.

"Yes." She hugged the blond boy and he hugged her back. Looking over Yumi's shoulder, he saw Ulrich's card on Jeremie's screen and his previous question returned to him.

"Jeremie?" He asked, pulling away from Yumi. "Why do you have Ulrich's card up on the screen?"

"Well, Ulrich isn't with us anymore and…so I thought… alright I was planning on deleting it. We don't need it anymore."

"No!" Odd yelled, causing everyone in the room to jump. "Don't ever delete it! Just because he is gone, it doesn't mean that we can't still have it there as a reminder that he was, scratch that_ is_ part of this group. He is still a Lyoko warrior."

Jeremie nodded. "Fine." He exited out of the program and shut the computer off. "Happy."

"No, but thank you."

"You're welcome. You know, I really didn't want to go through with it anyway." Jeremie said.

"Guys?" Aelita said quietly. "Can we tell stories and relive memories that we have of Ulrich?"

"That's a great idea Aelita. Who wants to go first?" Jeremie asked, glad to be off the subject of him almost deleting Ulrich out of Lyoko. That night they stayed up until the sunrise of the next day telling story after story about Ulrich. The one that got everyone however, was the story of Odd's first kiss with him. It was the last story to be told before they were all going to go their separate ways to get ready for that day's miserable task.

"Did I ever tell you what happened when Ulrich and I shared our first kiss?" They all shook their heads. "Well, it wasn't here on Earth, but on Lyoko..."

_It was a quiet day during spring break, three months to the day that they had started to date. They were still keeping it a secret from their friends as well. Odd and Ulrich were two of the few people who had chosen to stay behind. Yumi was in Japan and Aelita had gone home with Jeremie. Ulrich and Odd were hanging out in the factory, because Ulrich said that he had a surprise for Odd. The week before Jeremie had taught Ulrich how to work the super computer in case something ever happened to the blond genius. Ulrich told Odd to get into the scanner, and that he would be with him in Lyoko shortly. Odd nodded and left the room. _

"_Transfer Odd, scanner Odd." Ulrich paused. "Virtualization!" He hit the enter key and watched as Odd was transported to Lyoko. He then typed in a new code that Jeremie had given him and ran to the scanner room. He only had a minute to get into the scanner otherwise he wouldn't be able to go to Lyoko. Luckily he made it just in time. He stepped into the scanner right as the doors were closing and within seconds, he landed next to Odd in Lyoko._

_The brunette grabbed the blonde's hand and led him to the spot he had seen last time they were here. They had been virtualized in the ice region, right near this cliff that overlooked the whole region. When they finally reached the spot Ulrich was picturing in his head, he sat down, Odd following suit._

"_So why did you bring me to Lyoko?" Odd asked quizzically._

"_Because I wanted to do this where I knew no one was watching." With that, Ulrich pressed his lips against Odd's, both of their hearts racing. It was innocent, yet so sweet. Both knew not to take it too far, they just wanted a slow relationship._

"_Happy Anniversary Odd." Ulrich whispered sweetly, his forehead pressed to Odd's._

"_And to you as well Ulrich." He replied, capturing Ulrich's mouth once more._

By the time Odd was done telling the story, tears were flowing down his cheeks. The room was silent with all eyes on him. "Sorry guys, for waiting till after spring break to tell you about our relationship. When you asked and we said it had only been a week, it had actually been three months. We didn't want you guys to get mad at us for keeping it from you."

"It's alright Odd, we understand. But I'm still shocked that you got to Lyoko without me there, but I'm glad you did." Jeremie said to which Odd nodded.

"It's almost time. And I don't know about you guys, but I need to get ready. See you in Principal Delmas' office in two hours." Yumi said, as she got up. Aelita soon followed, leaving the two blonds alone.

"Jeremie, I don't want to go back to my room. I don't want to be with that stranger Tommy." Odd said.

"Do you want to see if you can change your room to this one? I can have your bed brought in."

"Really? You would do that?" Odd asked excitedly.

"Yeah. Just grab your stuff and bring it in here. You can change when you're ready. I'm going to go take a shower." Odd nodded and ran off to get his stuff. Once he had everything he looked back at the room before quickly shutting the door behind him. Too many memories of all the good times spent in his room where flooding back. He took his bags back to Jeremie's room, threw them on the opposite side of the room and laid on the bed, glad to be alone.

"I can't believe you're gone Ulrich." He whispered, tears slowly returning to his eyes.

**A/N: Please review, but no flames! I'm sorry that it seems a little rushed, but I could barely type fast enough to keep up with my brain. If it made you cry, just tell me because I know a lot of people have been telling me my other stories made them cry. If this is the first of my stories that you have read and you liked it, please read the other and review! Reviews are what keep me going and motivated! :D**


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